Hi! Your friendly, neighborhood Transwoman here! My name is Allanah Raas-Bergquist, and I am the Operations Coordinator at PEPS. I use she/her pronouns and am Dad/Dadda/Daddy to my 5-year-old daughter Svea (her pronouns vacillate between she/they/fancylady/poopadoop). March 31st is International Transgender Day of Visibility (TDoV), which for me is the most important of the few trans* holidays that are on the…
It’s that time of year again! During this cold, rainy season that Seattle is best known for, what can mean for our kids, their allergies, and their overall health? This season, children will likely have a sniffly nose, and the question is: is it a cold or is it allergies? That’s right! Sniffles might not be a cold or a…
Last month, we gathered to hear an engaging and relevant topic from Shanna Donhauser, a clinically trained social worker and psychotherapist and infant mental health expert. PEPS Grandparents learned how best to support their adult children when they become parents. Parenting changes all the time, and today’s parents experience different demands and expectations. Today there are high expectations for parenting…
by Heather Gautschi, Communications Manager, Seattle Children’s Theatre If you’re looking to enhance your child’s artistic activities and experiences, bringing them to live theatre is a great opportunity. The theatre is an amazing place to be utterly, blissfully yourself, and it can be really powerful for children to feel welcomed for precisely who they are. Theatre can be an anchor in an otherwise…
Grandparents gathered for a PEPS quarterly grandparent happy hour to celebrate National Grandparents Day. Jan Faull facilitated the discussion on kids and positive social behavior. We asked attendees to sit at tables organized the age of their grandchild(ren). Discussion was animated, and grandparents talked about their role being involved. Here’s a look at what they shared: What do you want…
by Jessica Towns Well, it happened. The strange and scary thing we thought would never happen. My husband and I swore we’d never fall victim to cliché. But it happened anyway: we bought a house in the suburbs. I always imagined we’d put down roots in Seattle, where we lived for the entirety of our twenties. I’d gotten to know…
by Anjelica Malone As we head into each new season of life—the start of a new school year, the first day of a job, or the initial weeks home with our new baby, we are told that routines are the best way to keep all the balls in the air and keep from missing a beat. But oftentimes we realize…
On a bright and sunny morning in July, PEPS gathered a group of grandparents together at the Environmental Science Center in Burien. We decided to drop in on the Center’s Tidepools for Tots program to learn more about how grandparents can engage their grandchildren in nature. We learned more about the unique ecosystem of the tidepools and gathered a few…
by Emily Cherkin Many of us will be traveling this summer, with both our kids and smartphones in tow. And who doesn’t want to document these precious summer memories? Of course, once I capture these fleeting moments, it’s sooooo easy to click and share what we are up to on social media. But I’ve also grown increasingly skeptical of this…
by Debbie LeeKeenan We all know the benefit of reading to our children from the earliest ages—reading helps babies develop language, hearing words helps brain development by building a rich network of synapses, and reading creates a caring bond between the child and reader. But did you know another important reason to read to children is that books provide…
